Help me Choose what to Socket Helmet

[TraderJoes]

Hi i currently have a mf/75%ES/lite/infinity sorc running about 250mf. My mana is around 3.1k and life 1.2k Bo'd. Just i feel i still have something extra i can do to add to my char since i have an empty space in my shako. I've been considering some options, listed below:

1) Ber= 8%dr, helps reduce the damage that's getting past my 75% es?

2) Jah or Perf Ruby= Jah adds a 5% to max life (which i heard is nonBOable) and perf ruby adds +38 which IS BOable.

3) Perfect skull = adds Life replenish +5 (don't know how significant that is) and a 19% mana regen that adds to that of my warmth.

4) Dol = Replenish life +7, and again i have no idea how much that's going to be actually useful toward my build.

5) Ith = 15% damage taken goes to mana, how does this stack with EnergyShield?

6) 5/-5 LiteFacet = If nothing else works out to be worthy, then would this be a good choice? It just seems to me that only one jewel wouldn't be that good of an investment for more damage?


And to inform you guys i already have 75% all resists in hell with some stacked a bit more, so no need for um runes and such.

So please help me choose : D
Any suggestions/comments will be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

[Leohappy]

i'd go with either: ptopaz for mf or -5 +x light facet for more dmg

[sirpoopsalot]

i'd go with either: ptopaz for mf or -5 +x light facet for more dmg

yuppers.

On decisions like this, I often ask "what monsters/mods/situation/etc. will likely to give me the most trouble?" and then customize around that. In your case, it's probably unbreakable LI's, and there isn't much you can do about those. Otherwise, you shouldn't have huge problems surviving with those stats/skills/gear, so you might as well take whatever a little extra MF can give you - or reduce your runtimes by whatever tiny bit a facet gives. If Gloams are still troublesome you could always use a Lo rune to boost your max lite resist, but I doubt that's really necessary.


BTW, it takes ~11 Replenish Life just to regenerate one single point of Life per second. Dol & PSkulls are effectively useless to you - it really takes skills (i.e. Prayer merc + Insight polearm) to make Replenish an effective helper past Act1 normal.

Also, Damage-to-Mana doesn't stack with ES at all (uh... I think), but it's nice because it's applied after the other damage - so no matter how much your mana bulb is drained from a big hit or two, you will still have a little mana in your bulb - which will hopefully be enough to teleport away from a dangerous situation.

[TraderJoes]

On decisions like this, I often ask "what monsters/mods/situation/etc. will likely to give me the most trouble?" and then customize around that. In your case, it's probably unbreakable LI's

Actually, that's one of my problems, but i usually just teleport/namelock on the gloams until my merc takes them down which is quite fast, taking minimal damage to myself. The thing that really annoys me while i'm mfing is the Poison. Argh. i absolutely hate it because it just stays for awhile and whittles at my life while i fight other things. The monsters that usually do it is wave 2 of baal, and if i teleport in close, those Doom Knights' swords also poison me. I was thinking of socketing the rune that gives +5% extra psn resists? to make my psn resist go up to 80%? I don't know how much that would affect how much poison damage i take then.

And both of you suggested a facet would improve dmg? how much would it affect my light dmg, at around 22k? Assuming i use an infinity on my merc also.

Thanks!

[sirpoopsalot]

I don't think 80% Poison Resist will really make much difference from 75%. Technically, it'll cut 20% of the damage you're currently receiving, but as you say - it whittles away your life for a long period of time. Increasing the resist isn't going to really solve this problem.

For poison & Baal runs, I found the easiest solution was actually to just drink healing potions and 'cope' until after the second wave, and then after that wave is dead, just throw up a quick town portal, pop-through and quickly talk to Malah to get healed, and then immediately go back through the portal. Sure, it adds ~2 seconds to your run, but it's only 2 friggin seconds ;P - and TP scrolls and red potions drop all the time, so it'll give you something to pick up while waiting for waves to spawn. (actually, often I would wait until after the 3rd/4th wave before using this strategy, since that way you can fully heal the merc before facing the hardest/most dangerous monsters).

... another semi-common solution is to simply devote a row in your belt to Antidote potions, but I find the 4 slots run out too quick and need to be refilled way too often for my tastes.

Finally, there's always equipment with Poison Length Reduced X%. There's a significant poison-length-penalty in Hell difficulty (100%, IIRC), so you actually would need to overstack this mod to make it properly effective, IMO. Still, you can get up to 75% on an amulet (magic ammys, at least - I'm not sure if it goes that high on rares), and I think a few other items in the game also have the same amount. However, I doubt the sacrafices you'd make to your equipment would make this a great solution.



As for the facet, it wouldn't make a huge difference against normally non-LI monsters. As an example, let's say that Monster X has 50% Lite resist before conviction (-35% after Conviction) - and you aren't carrying any additional -Enemy Lightning Resistance equipment (aka -ELR, which is found on Griffon's Eye diadem, 'Cresent Moon' runeword, etc.).

So, against Monster X you're already doing (22k * 1.35 =) 29.7k damage. With a perfect facet, lowering the enemy resistance another 5% only pushes your damage up another ~1.5k (22k * 1.4 = 30.8k... then if you throw the 5% increased damage from the facet, you might get another ~1k... I didn't do that math because it's truly not going to be much of an increase).

However, the area where a facet shines will be against a broken-LI, such as a Burning Soul (110% base Lightning resistance). Since Conviction is only 1/5th effective if it breaks an immunity (85% from lvl12 Conviction * 0.2 penalty = 17% effective), that means a Burning Sould will still have a very high lightning resistance (110 - 17 = 93% LiteRes). Without the facet, 93% of your 22k damage is resisted, which means you're only doing ~1.5k damage. However, facets work at complete effectiveness on a broken immunity, so the Burning Souls resistance would be lowered an additional 5% (to 88%). So now you're doing ~2.6k damage after resistances (I'm not sure how many HP a Burning Soul has, but lets assume it's 10k... that would mean the facet would save you 3 casts/hits of lighting per Burning Soul).

Of course, if you already have some -ELR from your other equipment, the benefit from the facet won't be as pronounced, but it will still be there. Personally, I'd probably just throw in a PTopaz and save the facet as trade-bait, but hopefully this is enough info that you can make an informed decision on your own.

[Leohappy]

^ agree with the above, just wanted to add that in throne room, there are 2 poison attacks: one is long duration but low damage, the other is short duration, high damage attack (probably from achmed the cursed)

a good way to avoid being poisoned is to stand somewhat away from the summoning platform, and let your merc tank the bad guys, while you zap from behind; this way the merc will take the heavy poison hits, but if you give him andariels visage, he will have 85% psn resist, which makes him practically immune to psn

usually, if i do get poisoned, I scan the immediate area for antidotes, since there is often one around, otherwise a quick visit to malah is the fastest way

as for facet, it depends where and how you play; if you want to fight former immunes (like archers in the pit, or mages in tunnels), then get -5 +x facet
if you prefer to skip them, then ptopaz is obviously better